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EAST GERMANY AND THE PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE OF COMMUNISM(S)—THOUGHTS ON THE REACCENTUATION OF MARXISM AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF COMMUNIST POLITICAL SYSTEMS Christian Hein After World War I many Germans put high hopes in communism. The newly established Soviet Union was regarded as a new model nation where utopian ideas could prosper. Political thinkers like Wilhelm Reich and Bertolt Brecht saw the opportunity to overthrow bourgeois society and create a system of freedom for everyone. The experience of Stalinism crushed the hopes of many intellectuals. Reich broke with communism and went to the US. After the German Democratic Republic had been established Bertolt Brecht moved to East Berlin. Unlike other communist countries such as the Soviet Union or Maoist China the GDR granted its citizens a comparably higher degree of freedom due to the different cultural environment of the East German communist system and its own reaccentuation of Marxist thought. However, the GDR was a flawed system merely kept alive with capital from West Germany—a circumstance that inevitably lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the GDR’s being absorbed by West Germany. In this paper the author will discuss to what degree cultural factors in a particular political system play a role in the context of establishing communist systems. Why was Chinese communism of the Mao era so different from communism in the GDR at the same time? The contextu(r)ality of cultural programming and the writings of Marx will be looked at to show how political reality came to deviate that far from (utopian) political discourse. Another important factor in this context is the dependence of communist systems on capitalism. Eventually, the fall of East German will be discussed as an indicator for the transformation of communism with China as most obvious example of a capitalist communist system—a fact that leads to the question whether communist systems have 

Christian Hein, National Taiwan University. Research fields: Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies, Literary Theory, Philosophy. This paper is a result of research carried out as part of the research project ―MOST 103-2410-H-002157-‖. The author would like to thank the MOST (Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan) for their support.

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to be regarded as parts and products of the pluralistic universe of capitalism(s).

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 390 I. PRELUDE TO UTOPIA—THE USSR OF GERMAN INTELLECTUALS IN THE 1920S .......................................................................................................... 395 II. DIFFERENCES IN THE POLITICAL SYSTEMS OF THE GDR, USSR, AND THE PEOPLE‘S REPUBLIC OF CHINA .................................................................... 401 III. CONTEXTU(R)ALIY AND SYSTEM FORMING—THE PROBLEM OF CULTURAL COMPATIBILITY ........................................................................ 409 IV. A PACT SEALED IN BLOOD: CREATING CHINESE COMMUNIST IDENTITY THROUGH COLLECTIVE INTENTIONALITY .................................................... 414 V. THE END: THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL AND THE FUTURE ............... 419 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................... 425 INTRODUCTION In Heiner Müller‘s play Die Hamletmaschine first performed in 1977 the writer voices his disappointment about the GDR‘s communist system with utmost intensity. Strangely enough, Müller—an ardent communist, who occupied a plot of land after the fall of the Berlin Wall to save a piece of the GDR from capitalism—criticizes not only the GDR‘s politial system but the whole communist tradition with its glorified heroes Marx, Lenin, Mao etc. Surprisingly, the play became a classic of modern German theater, although Müller as a prominent writer of the GDR openly turned against communism and its historical reference system. His play starts with the protagonist leaving a destroyed Europe behind: Ich war Hamlet. Ich stand an der Küste und sprach mit der Brandung BLABLA, im Rücken die Ruinen von Europa. Die Glocken läuteten das Staatsbegräbnis ein, Mörder und Witwe ein Paar, im Stechschritt hinter dem Sarg des hohen Kadavers die Räte, heulend in schlecht bezahlter Trauer WER IST DIE LEICHE IM LEICHENWAGEN? UM WEN HÖRT MAN VIEL SCHREIN UND KLAGEN? DIE LEICHE IST EINES GROSSEN? GEBERS VON ALMOSEN. Das Spalier der Bevölkerung, Werk seiner Staatskunst ER WAR EIN MANN NAHM ALLES NUR VON ALLEN. ... Bildschirm schwarz. Blut aus dem Kühlschrank. Drei nackte Frauen: Marx Lenin Mao. Sprechen gleichzeitig jeder in seiner Sprache den Text ES GILT ALLE VERHÄLTNISSE UMZUWERFEN, IN DENEN DER MENSCH... Hamletdarsteller legt Kostüm und Maske an. ... UND KNAPP VORM DRITTEN HAHNENSCHREI ZERREISST

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EIN NARR DAS SCHELLENKLEID DES PHILOSOPHEN KRIECHT EIN BELEIBTER BLUTHUND IN DEN PANZER Tritt in die Rüstung, spaltet mit dem Beil die Köpfe von Marx Lenin Mao. Schnee. Eiszeit.1

This morbid section ends with the heads of Marx, Lenin, and Mao Tsetung being split in half with an axe—thereby decapitating the three most valued communist authorities of the contemporary communist world: a literal decapitation of communism. Müller‘s play can be seen as an indicator of change within the GDR and the communist system itself. Nothing is left of the initial spirit of utopianism trying hard to see the possibility of a new age and new society in the evolving communist system of the USSR. The publication of Müller‘s drama can be viewed as a reaction to the absolutist status of the GDR‘s ruling part that had given itself totalitarian power in 1974 with the constitution changed in its favor: ―Die erste DDRVerfassung, die noch auf ganz Deutschland zielte und am 7.10.1949 in Kraft gesetzt wurde, wies demokratische und rechtsstaatliche Strukturelemente auf, die sich stark an die Weimarer Reichsverfassung von 1919 anlehnten.‖2 (The democratic prinicples of the initial constitution limited the power of the party. But in 1968 a shift occurs that granted the SED—the GDR‘s ruling party—exclusive power.3 The peak of the party‘s influence is reached in 1974 lending the SED dictatorial status: In der zweiten Verfassung der DDR vom 6. April 1968, zuletzt geändert am 7. Oktober 1974, werden die prägenden Strukturprinzipien des sozialistischen Staates festgeschrieben, so die führende Rolle der marxistisch-leninistischen Partei ..., das sozialistische Eigentum an den Produktionsmitteln ..., die sozialistische Planwirtschaft ... oder das Prinzip des demokratischen 1

HEINER MÜLLER, DIE HAMLETMASCHINE. www.peter-matussek.de. KARL G. TEMPEL, DIE PARTEIEN IN DER BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND UND DIE ROLLE DER PARTEIEN IN DER DDR. GRUNDLAGEN. FUNKTIONEN. GESCHICHTE. PRAGMATIK. ORGANISATION 270 (Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien 1987). 3 Tempel remarks that the SED had turned to Stalinism as early as 1948, although the democratic principles of the Weimarer Reichsverfassung were still a vital part of the GDR‘s constitution: ―Seit Sommer 1948 vollzog die SED die Umwandlung in eine “Partei neuen Typus”. Sie bekannte sich nun vollends zum Stalinismus und dem sowjetischen Gesellschaftsmodell. Organisatorisch verwandelte sie sich von einer Massenpartei in eine leninistische Kaderpartei. Sozialdemokraten oder Kommunisten, die sich diesem Kurs wiedersetzten, wurden als ―Parteifeinde― aus der SED ausgeschlossen.‖ (Id., at 215-216.) Stalinism had to be adopted as prime principle of governance bacause the SED did not have the support of the East German population—a fact that had become obvious in the relatively free elections of 1946: ―Die noch relativ freien Wahlen des Jahres 1946 hatten gezeigt, daßdie SED trotz Unterstützung durch die Besatzungsmacht und massiver Beeinflussung der Bevölkerung nicht überall die absolute Mehrheit erringen konnte.‖ (Id., at 216.) In order to establish the SED as ruling party democratic principles had to be exchanged with Stalinist ones. Otherwise the party would have been forced to step down by popular vote. This early election disaster shows how little the people of East Germany were able to identify with the party. 2

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Zentralismus.4

The 1974 constitution was designed to guarantee the SED‘s political survival and secure it against possible criticism arising from the population referring to the democratic principles of the initial GDR constitution: ―Die Verfassung ist so gestaltet, daßsie trotz des Festhaltens an einem formellen Mehrheitssystem die Herrschaft der SED fest verankert.‖5 (The result was that the party‘s status could not be questioned by referrring to the law which in the constitution made the GDR and the SED inseparable: ―Die SED hat die beherrschende Funktion inne, und ihre monopolartige Stellung im politischen System der DDR ist auch verfassungsrechtlich fixiert.‖ 6 For liberal communists like Müller the new reality of the communist system in the GDR gave no reason to hope but indicates that all hope is gone. The power was put in the hands of the party by the party. The people were excluded from all political decisions. The communist experiment had failed. The great leaders and their ideas had become a liability that had to be removed from the system by all means. Müller diagnosed the leading heads of communism as the ultimate problem.7 The title of this paper indicates a hypertextual connection of East Germany as a particular Marxist text in the diverse world of communism in the twetieth century. Quite obviously, the title, moreover, alludes to William James‘ A Pluralistic Universe. In his work published in 1909 James contemplates the modes of interaction and oneness. He sees the texture of the world as a fabric made out of pluralistic modes of existence that together create a oneness—a unity in which all the different forms and models coexist in a state of separation but, more importantly, principal interaction. James writes: ... nothing real is absolutely simple, that every smallest bit of experience is a multum in parvo plurally related, that each relation is one aspect, character, or function, way of its being taken, or way of its taking something else; and that a bit of reality when actively engaged in one of these relations is not by that very

4

Id., at 218. Id., at 219. 6 Id., at 220. 7 Another important fact about the communist system of the USSR was revealed to the reading public of West and East Germany at about the same time Müller performed his play for the first time. In 1974 the German tranlsation of Alexander Solschenizyn‘s horrible account of the Soviet labour camps was published. The real circumstances of life in the Soviet Union were a terrible blow for all communist idealists in the West (and East). Also the true face of the Mao‘s Cultural Revolution became better known. Worshipped communist figures like Stalin and Mao were now criticized for their dictatorial and inhumane terror against the population of their countries. 5

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fact engaged in all the other relations simultaneously.8

James defines his concept of pluralism: ―Pluralism lets things really exist in the each-form or distributively.‖9 And further: ... The all-form allows of both taking up and dropping of connexions, for in the all the parts are essentially and eternally co-implicated. In the each-form, on the contrary, a thing may be connected by intermediary things, with a thing with which it has no immediate or essential connexion.10

His conclusion: ―If the each-form be the eternal form of reality no less than it is the form of temporal appearance, we still have a coherent world, and not an incarnate incoherence, as is charged by so many absolutists. Our ‗multiverse‘ will still make a ‗universe‘.‖11 This multiverse of communism must be attributed to a rather free re-accentuation of Marxism and Marxist principles that led to ever new froms of communism(s) in different cultural system that adopted Marxism as mode of governance. The process of reaccentuation is similar to bricolage in the way that it works with texts of another historical time and transforms them by re-accentuating them— changing their meaning to make them fit in a certain cultural context: ‖Within certain limits the process of re-accentuation is unavoidable, legitimate and even productive. But these limits may easily be crossed when a work is distant from us and when we begin to perceive it against a background completely foreign to it.‖ 12 Bakhtin warns against oversimplifications: Perceived in such a way, it may be subjected to a re-accentuation that radically distorts it. … Especially dangerous is any vulgarizing that oversimplifies re-accentuation … and that turns a two-voiced image into one that is flat, single-voiced—into a silted heroic image …13

The cult of communist heroes can be taken as indication of how the reaccentuation of Maexism was (ab)used to establish charismatic leaders as rulers in order to establish totalitarian (dictatorial) regimes serving only the leading political figures such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao instead of the working class or the people as Marx had demanded, thereby changing the intentioin of the founder(s) of communism to an utterly different (self-serving) 8

WILLIAM JAMES, A PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE. HERBERT LECTURES AT MANCHESTER COLLEGE 129-130 (Rockville, MD: Arc Manor 2008). 9 Id., at 130. 10 Id.. 11 Id.. 12 M. M. BAKHTIN, THE DIALOGIC IMAGINATION. FOUR ESSAYS BY M. M. BAKHTIN 420 (Michael Holquist ed. & Caryl Emerson et al. trans. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press 1981). 13 Id..

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purpose. The author would like to take this diverse world with its multitude of universes as starting point to explain the idiosyncratic system of communism in the German Democratic Republic in the universe of communism with which it was in constant interaction but from which it also distinguished itself through its particularly different system structure. As I will show in this paper this was due to constitutional factors—the constitution was changed significantly in 1968 and again in 1974 to make the GDR a Leninist one-party system—as well as problems of identity because of the party‘s failure to produce and foster a shared communist identity within the population and therefore making it impossible to give the people a collective (shared) intentionality. When the Berlin Wall came down in November 1989 visitors from the German East started exploring the West which most of them had only known from western TV programs that had been extremely popular in the communist East. Many of those visitors immediately headed for the supermarkets to buy all the bananas they could carry and bring them back to the East to distribute them among their families and friends. Only few of these early guests honestly thought of staying in the West. The East had not been so bad in reality. It seemed just as if only some items hard to acquire in the East had fueled this westward movement. Consequently, Slavoj Žižek jokingly remarked about the ―true‖ nature of the so-called peaceful revolution that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall: ―As sarcastic Western commentators duly noted, the noble struggle for freedom and justice turned out to be little more than a craving for bananas and pornography.‖ 14 Naturally, the awareness of the East Germans about the situation in the West may have been the straw that broke the camel‘s back and, as a consequence, led to the fall of East German communism. The really decisive factors, nevertheless, have to be looked for elsewhere—to be precise: the GDR itself had been an ill-conceived political utopia right from the start with its roots going back to Marxist discourse and the harsh rule of Stalinism over East Germany as an occupied country. The fact that the communist world was situated within the capitalist world seems to be a crucial factor in the shortlived experiment of East German communism. The GDR itself was always looking for ways to support its weak economy. Ironically, help came—on many occasions—from the ―fascist‖ neighbor West Germany.

14

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK, LIVING IN THE END TIMES vii (London and New York: Verso 2011).

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I. PRELUDE TO UTOPIA—THE USSR OF GERMAN INTELLECTUALS IN THE 1920S After fifty years of communism people had become weary of political reality. There attitude towards the communist regimes with the all controlling communist party on top has changed radically. In the first years of the Soviet Union enthusiasm about the communist revolution spread all over Europe. In Germany the KPD (the German Communist Party) quickly gained a huge following. Nationalists and communists were fighting in the streets of Berlin and Munich and other major German cities. Many German intellectuals saw communism as chance to bring order to the chaos in Germany‘s cities and demanded a fusion of Germany with the USSR. One of the nost ardent supportewrs of communism was German writer Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) who used his plays to advertize the communist cause: ―In unerhörtem Maße wird der Mensch seine Umwelt ändern und zugleich die Form des Zusammenlebens der Menschen.‖ 15 Disillusioned with the First World War and worried about rising nationalism promoted by parties like the National Socialists Brecht turned to Marxism and later to Stalinism 16 which he then idealized as being the only proper way of government. In the 1920s Brecht wrote: Es ist eine sichtbare Angelegenheit, daßdie kapitalistische Klasse in Europa verbraucht ist, sie gibt nichts mehr her, vor allem keine Begierden mehr. Die Menge links ist gut, solang sie kämpft; dann, wenn sie gesiegt hat, mußsie ersetzt werden.17

15

Bertolt Brecht, An die Sowjetleser, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 23, 420 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992). 16 On the notice of Stalin‘s death Brecht wrote: ―Den Unterdrückten von fünf Erdteilen, denen, die sich schon befreit haben, und allen, die für den Weltfrieden kämpfen, mußder Herzschlag gestockt haben, als sie hörten, Stalin ist tot. Er war die Verkörperung ihrer Hoffnung. Aber die geistigen und materiellen Waffen, die er herstellte, sind da, und da ist die Lehre, neue herzustellen.‖ [Bertolt Brecht, Zum Tod Stalins, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 23, 225 SCHRIFTEN 3 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992)]. It is hard (or better: impossible) to undrstand Brecht‘s reasoning here. Presenting Stalin as personification of hope (―Verkörperung ihrer Hoffnung‖) seems to go definitely too far. Brecht writes in another comment on Stalin‘s numerous merits: ―Ich lobe ihn aus vielen Gründen. Aber zumeist, weil unter seiner Führung die Räuber geschlagen wurden. Die Räuber, meine Landsleute.‖ [Bertolt Brecht, Stalin, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 23. SCHRIFTEN 3, 226 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992)]. Brecht moreover defends Stalin‘s introduction of ―democratic‖ institutions against possible criticism from communists: ―Für den Krieg ist die Einführung demokratischer Institutionen notwendig. Sie wurde durch die Stalinsche Partei versucht.‖ [Bertolt Brecht, Über den Versuch demokratischer Institutionen in der USSR, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 22.1. SCHRIFTEN 2, 305 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1993)]. 17 Bertolt Brecht, Über den Sozialismus, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 21. SCHRIFTEN 1, 140 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992).

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Brecht claims that capitalism has reached its end—the time of socialism has come. He further stresses the need of the left to struggle for its cause. Fighting capitalism is his declared goal. Brecht is aware of the difficulties that will arise when taking on the established system of capitalism: ―Die größte und unumgänglichste Schwierigkeit: festzustellen, wieviel der Marxismus vom Kapitalismus abhängt. Wie viele seiner Methoden kapitalistische sind oder nur auf kapitalistische Zustände passen.‖18 This dependence of communism on capitalism worries Brecht—a fact that shows how rational he views the situation in the 1920s. Brecht suggests that a proper and effective way of totally eliminating the capitalist system lies in abolishing its cultural identity—bourgeois literature: Selbstverständlich muß ein proletarisch diktierter Staat einen ganzen, übrigens sehr großen Haufen von Literatur, die den bourgeoisen Vorurteilen ihr Leben verdankt, einfach einstampfen lassen (die im Entstehen begriffene wird wohl schon durch den Marschschritt der Arbeiterbataillone eingestampft).19

Brecht sees literature as the voice of society—as system which helps foster a culture‘s identity. By getting rid of bourgeois literature and replacing it with Marxist discourse the cultural basis for a thorough communist system could be established. He also believes that communist literature is the only true literature: ―Ihr solltet nicht mehr lange so schreiben, daß man zwar euren Standpunkt, den kommunistischen, erkennt, aber nicht gezwungen ist, sich dafür und dagegen zu entscheiden.‖20 Brecht wants to use literature as tool for gaining the support of the masses. Art as tool of the revolution is a possibility Brecht seriously considered, thereby most likely overestimating the role of art in communist theory as well his own status within the revolutionary struggle of communism—communism, in Brecht‘s understanding, must be viewed as system in which literature can prosper amd become the ruling principle of governance. Another supporter for a communist revolution in Germany was Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957)—a famous psychologist and fighter for a sexual revolution which he saw realized in the USSR. Reich‘s aim was to overcome bourgeois repression of sexuality. He thought communism would dismiss classic bourgeois family structures and enable a society of complete 18

Bertolt Brecht, Abhängigkeit des Marxismus, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 21. SCHRIFTEN 1, 407 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992). 19 Bertolt Brecht, Sozialisierung der Kunst, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 21. SCHRIFTEN 1, 179 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992). 20 Bertolt Brecht, Konflikt, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 23. SCHRIFTEN 23, 304 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992).

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sexual freedom. In the late 1920s Reich and his wife traveled to the USSR and were amazed at the sexual freedom people enjoyed in a Soviet community they visited: Im Sommer 1929 besuchte er zusammen mit Annie für einige Wochen Rußland, wo er auch einige Vorträge hielt. Nach seiner Rückkehr war er mehr denn je davon überzeugt, daß das sexuelle Elend eng verknüpft war mit der ökonomischen Ausbeutung und daßeine echte Veränderung nur mit der sozialen Revolution einhergehen könnte. Die Maßnahmen in der Sowjetunion – einfaches Scheidungsrecht, legale Abtreibung, Versuche, die ökonomische Abhängigkeit der Frau zu überwinden und einige, auch sexuell sehr offene ―Kinderkollektive‖, wie das der psychoanalytisch orientierten Erzieherin Veronika Schmidt— bestärkten ihn in seiner Auffassung, daßdies alles nur in einer kommunistischen Gesellschaft möglich sei.21

Reich became convinced that sexual freedom devoid of bouregois repressions could only be realized in a communist system that had broken with the old family structures of western culture and, moreover, had defined new laws guaranteeing sexual liberation unknown in bourgeois societies. Reich went on to promote this struggle for a new society without sexual repression of women and children. Unfortunately, Reich‘s quest for sexual freedom made it easy for nationalist parties to attack the ―immorality‖ of the communists: ―Dabei wurden die sowjetischen und deutschen Kommunisten mit der Zerstörung der Familie und mit der ‗freien Liebe‘ identifiziert – eine Position, die in der UdSSR längst an Boden verloren hatte und sich bei der KPD nie hatte durchsetzen können.‖22 What Reich did not realize was that the communists in the Soviet Union had long changed their initial plans of abolishing the bourgeois family and had gone back to traditional family structures which made it easier for the party to control the population. Reich, just as Brecht, believed that the intellectuals and common people would be involved in the process of building the country in the Soviet Union during the beginning years. 23 Solschenizyn writes about the common misconception of the 1920s as years of unlimited freedom: ―Viele nachfolgende Generationen gewannen den Eindruck, als wären die zwanziger Jahre ein einziger ungezügelter Freiheitstaumel gewesen. Wir 21

MYRON SHARAF, WILHELM REICH. DER HEILIGE ZORN DES LEBENDIGEN. DIE BIOGRAPHIE 173 (Ulrich Leutner ed. & Jürgen Fischer trans. Berlin: Simon und Leutner 1994). 22 Id., at 195. 23 Brecht honestly thought that the cultural system of Soviet communism would be shaped by writers and not by a dictatorial party: ―Ich werde mit größtem Interesse den Kongreß der Sowjetschriftsteller verfolgen, die der Welt das Bild einer völlig neuen Gesellschaft vermittelt haben, einer Gesellschaft, an der sie selber mitbauen.‖ [Bertolt Brecht, Kongress der Sowjetschriftsteller, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 23, 320 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992)].

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werden in diesem Buch noch Menschen begegnen, die diese Jahre anders erlebten.‖ 24 Consequently, Reich‘s disappointment with the Soviet Union and the communist cause grew. When Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany in 1933 and took on the position of president as well in 1934 Reich realized that he was fighting for a lost cause in Germany. The policy of Stalin in the USSR made him realize that Russian communism was, in many aspects, no different from fascism than National Socialism— something Brecht vehemently denied by insisting that Stalin‘s USSR was a safe haven of humanity: Aufgefordert, einer Londoner Ausstellung gegen die faschistische Unterdrückung seine Unterstützung zu leihen, antwortete der Schriftsteller Huxley, er könne dies nur, wenn die Ausstellung auch eine Abteilung ―Sowjetdiktatur‖ enthalte. 25 Von einigen Leuten, welche die Ausstellung bedingungslos gefördert hatten, gefragt, ob Huxley recht habe, antworteten die Veranstalter: Ja, Huxley habe recht, sie wollten diese Abteilung gerne einrichten, aber die Frager müßten zusammen mit Huxley erreichen, daß die englische Regierung diese Abteilung genehmige. Und sie schilderten, wie diese Abteilung, welche die Unterdrückung in der Sowjetunion darstellen sollte, aussehen würde. Die Frager sehen keine Möglichkeit, einer solchen Ausstellung die Genehmigung der englischen Regierung zu verschaffen.26

Reich, on the other hand, realized that both regimes—the Nazi ideology and the one of the Stalinists—were simply two sides of one and the same coin: ―Es herrscht ein diktatorisches Einparteiensystem mit einem autoritären Führer des russischen Volkes an der Spitze.‖27 One could easily 24

How liberal and free the 1920s in the Soviet Union were can be examplified by the following paragraph: ―Viele nachfolgende Genrationen gewannen den Eindruck, als wären die zwanziger Jahre ein einziger ungezügelter Freiheitstaumel gewesen. ... Wegen der Lektüre des Sozialistischen Boten und des Studiums der Schriften Plechanows wurden Leningrader Studenten (rund hundert Personen) 1925 zu drei Jahren Politisolator verurteilt. ... 1925 knöpfte man sich auch schon die ersten (allerjüngsten) Trotzkisten vor.‖ [ALEXANDER SOLSCHENIYZN, DER ARCHIPEL GULAG 46 (Anna Peturnig trans. Bern: Scherz Verlag 1974)]. The purges against intellectuals were already in progress. Even critical socialists became the target of the communists. 25 Brecht finds harsh words for all those who criticize Stalin‘s policy: ―Das, was ihr wollt, ihr Sozialisten, ist in Rußland gemacht worden. Ihr schriet nach Freiheit. Ihr gabt an, was getan werden müßte, damit es Freiheit gebe. Nun, es wurde gemacht, und jetzt sagt ihr selber: da ist keine Freiheit.‖ [Bertolt Brecht, Über meine Stellung zur Sowjetunion, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 22.1. SCHRIFTEN 2, 298 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992)]. In his mind Stalin had turned the will of the people into reality. Brecht cannot understand why anyone would complain about Stalin‘s successful communist system of peace and harmony for everyone. 26 Bertolt Brecht, Über die Unfreiheit der Schriftsteller in der Sowjetunion, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 22.1. SCHRIFTEN 2, 295 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992). 27 WILHELM REICH, DIE MASSENPSYCHOLOGIE DES FASCHISMUS 216 (Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch 1997).

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exchange the ―Russian‖ with ―German‖ and would exactly describe the situation of Germany under Hitler. Reich concludes: ―Die russischen Kommunisten waren von der Bejahung des Sexuallebens weiter entfernt als irgendein amerikanischer Mittelständler.‖ 28 His dream of a society which defines itself by freedom of sexuality was over. He tried to find the reason for the fascist character of communism and found it in the backward way of thinking of twentieth century Marxism: ―Die marxistischen Parteien in Europa versagten und gingen unter ..., weil sie den Faschismus, des 20. Jahrhunderts, eine grundsätzlich neue Erscheinung, mit Begriffen zu fassen versuchten, die dem 19. Jahrhundert entsprachen.‖29 Marxism was just not able to compare to the extremely modern fascists. Reich saw one major problem in the focus on ecomoic matters of nineteenth century Marxists: Die politische Ideologie der marxistischen Parteien Europas operierte mit rein wirtschaftlichen Zuständen, die einem Zeitraum von etwa 200 Jahren, also etwa vom 17. bis 19. Jahrhundert der Maschinenentwicklung entsprachen. Der Faschismus des 20. Jahrhunderts warf im Gegenzug dazu die Grundfrage der menschlichen Charakterbeschaffenheit, der menschlichen Mystik und Autoritätssucht auf, die einem Zeitraum von etwa 4000 bis 6000 Jahren entsprechen.30

The narrow focus of Marxism on 200 years of historical developments in the capitalist West was reason for Reich to question the rationality of communist discourse, since it was facing fascism which was mobilizing forces that have been part of human culture for thousands of years. Another big problem of Marxism after the First World War was that the utopian elements of political theory gained dominance over almost all other aspects—especially over the economic focus of early Marxism. In the twentieth century the ―scientific‖ dimension of Marx‘s analysis of capitalism gave way to an utterly utopian expectation of what marvels communism could bring to humankind. In fact communism, no matter where, offered people the possibility to hope for a better future: Like the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution, the regime excelled at mesmerising very different audiences on the road to utopia. It offered economic equality to the discontents of capitalism. It whispered freedom to those liberals outraged by authoritarian governments. ... Communism, in short, was all things to all men.31

28

Id., at 128. Id., at 21. 30 Id., at 26. 31 FRANK DIKÖTTER, THE TRAGEDY OF LIBERATION. A HISTORY OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION, 1945-57, 257 (London; New Delhi; New York and Sydney: Bloomsbury 2013). 29

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Dikötter further explains the enchanting power of communism over idealists from all over the world: The key to understanding the appeal of communism, despite the grim reality on the ground, lay in the fact that it allowed so many followers to believe that they were participating in an historic process of transformation, contributing to something much bigger and better than themselves, or anything that had come before.32

In visions like those that Wilhelm Reich observed during the 1920s— the vision of a totally free society of pure individual freedom and equality— the core of Marxism had already vanished, since the main focus was put solely on the last sentence of the Communist Manifesto: ―PROLETARIER ALLER LÄNDER VEREINIGT EUCH!‖ 33 The pragmatic dimension of Marx‘s scientific analysis that he had undertaken in the Capital had shifted into a purely messianic one. Thomas Piketty remarks that ... Marx based his work on an analysis of the internal logical contradictions of the capitalist system. He therefore sought to distinguish himself from both bourgeois economists ..., and utopian socialists and Proudhonians, who in Marx‘s view were content to denounce the misery of the working class without proposing a truly scientific analysis of the economic processes responsible for it.34

In the writings of Brecht as well as in the pamphlets of Reich the aspect of economic analysis plays a minor role—if it plays a role at all.35 The emphasis is put on ideological and utopian demands for a society free of bourgeois repressions. Nevertheless, Brecht remained a true supporter of the Soviet Union while Reich skeptically observed the development of the USSR under Stalin: So wie der Marxismus und der augenscheinliche Fortschritt in der Sowjetunion in den zwanziger Jahren seine sexualpolitischen Konzepte angeregt hatten, so veranlaßte ihn das Scheitern der russischen Revolution in den dreißiger Jahren, das 1939 im Hitler-Stalin-Pakt seinen Niederschlag fand, viele seiner Vorstellungen zu revidieren ...36

The Hitler-Stalin Pact was proof for Reich that the two systems of Nazism and communism were equal in many aspects and made Reich lose 32

Id., at 259-260. KARL MARX ET AL., DAS MANIFEST DER KOMMUNISTSICHEN PARTEI. GRUNDSÄTZE DES KOMMUNISMUS 56 (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun. 2005). 34 THOMAS PIKETTY, CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY 9 (Arthur Goldhamm trans. Cambridge, MA and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2014). 35 Brecht‘s Der gute Mensch von Sezuan is indeed one of the few exceptions and will be discussed later in this article. The emphasis in this play lies on the ethical aspects of the (immoral) capitalist system and communism as its (moral) counterpart. 36 SHARAF, supra note 19, at 381-382. 33

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his enthusiasm for a communist society immediately. Brecht, however, defended Stalin and his regime against all critics. Even when news of the trials against Stalin‘s enemies made it to the West Brecht kept his loyalty for the USSR. He saw Stalin‘s trials as necessary measure to prevent the Soviet Union from falling apart: Die Ausrottung der Oppositionen beweist nicht, daß die Partei zum Kapitalismus zurückkehren will, ... sondern daß jeder Rückzug, ja jede Schwankung, Atempause, taktische Umbiegung schon unmöglich geworden sind. ... Wenn der Krieg kommt, wird der ―überstürzte‖ Aufbau zusammenkrachen, der Apparat sich von den Massen isolieren, nach außen hin wird man die Ukraine, Ostsibirien usw. abtreten müssen, im Innern Konzessionen machen, zu kapitalistischen Formen zurückkehren, die Kulaken stärken oder stärker werden lassen müssen; aber all das ist zugleich die Voraussetzung des neuen Handelns, der Rückkehr Trotzkis.37

Brecht praises Stalin‘s efforts to stabilize the system of the Soviet Union. In 1935/36 he writes: ―Die Sowjetwelt scheint nunmehr so hinreichend verändert, daß man nicht mehr befürchten muß, die freiere Initiative des einzelnen könnte dem Ganzen noch allzu schädlich werden; man darf sich nunmehr der Vorteile solcher Initiativen versichern.‖38 Terror and genocide seem legitimate measures to Brecht to establish a selfsustaining and stable communist system. Reich never regained his enthusiasm for communism and went to the USA where he later was imprisoned and died in his cell in 1957. Brecht, after a few years in the USA, had to appear in court and defend himself against allegations of being a communist and supporter of the Soviet Union. After this encounter with McCarthy‘s war on communism Brecht went back to East Germany to live in the newly established GDR where he lived until his death in 1956. II. DIFFERENCES IN THE POLITICAL SYSTEMS OF THE GDR, USSR, AND THE PEOPLE‘S REPUBLIC OF CHINA In the GDR Brecht found an ideal society—a workers‘ paradise which he emphatically idealized and defended against any kind of criticism. Brecht speaks very highly about the new socialist system of the GDR: 37

Bertolt Brecht, Über die Prozesse der USSR (zur Selbstverständigung), in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 22.1. SCHRIFTEN 2, 369 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992). 38 Bertolt Brecht, Über das Programm der Sowjetschriftsteller, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 22.1. SCHRIFTEN 2, 135 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992).

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In der DDR ist ein kräftiger Versuch gemacht worden. Durch die Organisation einer völlig neuen Wirtschaftsform, einer sozialistischen, deren Hauptzüge bei uns schon sichtbar sind, ist eine Umschulung in Gang. Die Produktionsweise mußte dafür völlig geändert werden usw. Auch auf die bürgerliche Form der Formung von Regierungen und Beeinflussung mußte verzichtet werden. Die Wahlen hatten rein bestätigenden Charakter, waren ―nur‖ Volksbefragungen über eine neue Politik im Interesse der arbeitenden Bevölkerung.39

Brecht‘s view of the GDR is extremely significant. He sees the political system as something radically new—something never seen and attempted before in Germany. Of course, his status as famous writer gave him a kind of freedom the common people were not able to enjoy. He was the star and prized possession of the GDR and the ruling party.40 The radically new attempt to form a government—a system of governance—aroused Brecht‘s appraisal. This new political system (a system imposed on East Germany by the USSR) brought numerous problems along with it—the biggest one being the one of forming a cultural identity and a cultural ―we‖ of the ruling communist aprty and the population. Michael Tomasello stresses the importance of collective intentionality—an essential requirement to form a stable Lebenswelt in a cultural system: ―In general, humans are able to coordinate with others, in a way that other primates seemingly are not, to form a ‗we‘ that acts as a kind of plural agent to create everything from a collaborative hunting party to a cultural institution.‖41 Tomasello points out that the formation of a ―we‖ as shared identity is of utmost important and has been at the core of social systems for thousands of years: this is the way ―we‖ have always done things; it is part of who ―we‖ are. As cultural practices were handed down across generations cooperatively—adults 39

Bertolt Brecht, In der DDR ist ein kräftiger Versuch gemacht worden, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 23. SCHRIFTEN 3, 383-384 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992). 40 With fame comes considerable freedom—even in a repressive politcal system. The Russian composer Prokofiev is an excellent example: ... he returned to the Soviet Union in 1936, at the height of the Stalinist purges, drove around in his imported American car, dressed eccentrically in fancy clothes delivered from Paris, ordered books and food from the West, ignoring the madness and poverty around him. [SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK, IN DEFENSE OF LOST CAUSES 245 (London and New York: Verso 2009)]. Of course Brecht still perceived the GDR as governed by democratic principles, since he was only able to perceive the constitutional framework of the early 1950s which was still based on the Weimarer Reichsverfassung still granting the people full democratic freedom. Artikel 3 states: ―(1) Alle Staatsgewalt geht vom Volke aus. (2) Jeder Bürger hat das Recht und die Pflicht zur Mitgestaltung in seiner Gemeinde, seinem Kreise, seinem Lande und in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik.‖ 41 MICHAEL TOMASELLO, A NATURL HISTORY OF HUMAN THINKING 3 (Cambridge, MA and London, England: Harvard University Press 2014).

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altruistically teaching and youngsters trusting and even conforming—the resulting cumulative effect was that the ―we‖ became an enduring culture to which we (past, present, and future) are all committed (just as early humans were committed to their ongoing, small-scale collaborations).42

The consequence of this collective intentionality is that an organized system people can identify themselves with can be established: ―Human populations thus became more than a loosely structured pool of collaborators; they become self-identified cultures with their own ‗historie.‘‖ 43 The biggest dilemma in the GDR is the matter of historical continuity. Since it was a new political system consisting more or less completely of Germans with no experience of life in communist systems (or Germans who had actually embraced and supported the rule of Hitler‘s regime) the question was how a ―we‖ could be created by the government. The so-called elders maintaining the tradition of the system had just survived the rule of Nazism—a political regime the GDR tried to radically break with. And, of course, how can one trust the generation of people that let Auschwitz happen as advisors to the young? Thus where there is no continuity it is hard to create a reference system for the cultural system and therefore it is very hard to establish a cultural identity people can identify with: Es existierte keine Mythologie, die ein DDR-Volk hervorgebracht hätte, sondern es existierte lediglich die Zuweisung eines Staates an ein Teilvolk durch die Siegermächte nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, woraus nun die Bevölkerung Sinn schöpfen sollte.44

Unlike communist systems such as China with its own heroic reference myth—the Long March45 of Mao and his followers—the GDR was missing a commonly shared myth. The only way to define its own particular identity for the GDR was to draw a distinction—to distinguish itself from the ―fascist‖ FRG by emphasizing the ―anti-fascist‖ character of the GDR. Zimmering speaks of the ―entscheidende Gründungserzählung der DDR der 42

Id., at 83-84. Id.. 44 RAINA ZIMMERING, MYTHEN IN DER POLITIK DER DDR. EIN BEITRAG ZUR ERFORSCHUNG POLITISCHER MYTHEN 34 (Opladen: Leske+Budrich 2000). 45 Jung Chang sheds light on the true heroism of Mao and other hgih ranking members of the communists: ―For much of the Long March, including the most gruelling part of the trek, most of them were carried. ... Mao himself told his staff decades later: ‗On the March, I was lying in a litter. So what did I do? I read. I read a lot.‘ ... Waffed on other men‘s schoulders, Mao plotted a coup with Po Ku‘s two jealous colleagues. When the road was wide enough, they talked side by side; and on narrow paths, when they had to go in single file, they arranged their litters so that their heads were together.‖ [JUNG CHANG & JON HALLIDAY, MAO. THE UNKNOWN STORY 144 (London: Jonathan Cape 2005)]. 43

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Antifaschismus‖46 By comparing capitalism to fascism the totally inefficient economic system of the GDR also became justified. This setting of system borders through creating difference is a very basic mechanism of creating identity in a certain system.47 This matter of a missing myth leads to the problem of self-referentiality. The reference systems within the cultural systems contribute to the overall stability of the system by enabling the cultural system to engage in selfreferentiality. Luhmann claims that individuality can be established through self-reference: ―Individualität durch Selbstreferenz‖ 48 Such self-referential systems are the ideal environment for a national identity to form in a process of auto-poeisis: Selbstreferentielle Systeme sind in dem Sinne geschlossene Systeme, daßsie ihre eigenen Elemente und damit auch ihre eigenen Strukturänderungen selbst produzieren. Es gibt keinen direkten Kausalzugriff der Umwelt auf das System ohne Mitwirkung des Systems. Eben deshalb gibt das System seiner eigenen Struktur ... Kausalität.49

In order to be stable and to be able to produce its own identity the selfreflexive system needs to work with a fixed set of generalized rules and (national) symbols it can refer to in acts of self-referentiality: Reflexivität setzt in allen Prozessen ein hohes Maß an Generalisierung von Symbolen und Erwartungen voraus, denn nur so kann die Übertragbarkeit der Selektionsleistung von dem reflexiven Vorprozeß auf die intendierten, 46

Id., at 37. Niklas Luhmann explains the significance of system borders: ―Systeme setzen (1) gegen eine Umwelt Grenzen, die als Sinngrenzen zwischen System und Umwelt vermitteln, also sowohl auf Internes als auch auf Externes verweisen und beides füreinander zugänglich halten. Sie grenzen damit (2) einen Bereich von Ereignissen (Handlungen) ab, deren Aktualisierung sie sich selbst zurechnen. Mit den Interdependenzen zwischen diesen Handlungen entsteht (3) eine Komplexität, die im System symbolisiert und als Einheit (des Systems) reflektiert werden kann; die insofern für das System in der Form von Sinn zugänglich bleibt, die aber operativ nicht mehr nachvollzogen werden kann. Entsprechendes gilt (4) für die Umwelt des Systems, die nur jeweils für und durch ein System eine Einheit ist.‖ [NIKLAS LUHMANN, GESELLSCHAFTSSTRUKTUR UND SEMANTIK. STUDIEN ZUR WISSENSSOZIOLOGIE DER MODERNEN GESELLSCHAFT. BAND 1, 65-66 (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1993)]. Günther Dux points out the definition of system borders as crucial method to create and stabilize a system: ―1. Das, was sich als Umwelt darstellt, ist systemspezifisch strukturiert. Das kann nicht anders sein. Dem Menschen stehen nicht zwei Logiken, eine für das hauseigene System, eine andere für die Umwelt zur Verfügung. 2. Das, was das System wirklich übersteigt, ist diskret gar nicht faßbar.‖ [GÜNTHER DUX, DIE LOGIK DER WELTBILDER. SINNSTRUKTUREN IM WANDEL DER GESCHICHTE 152 (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1982)]. He GDR government had no choice but to efine its neighboring German system as fascist in oder to establish its own system logic according to which the identity of the GDR relied above all on its non-fascist character, thereby presenting the FRG as vile antagonist to the benign political system of socialism in the East. 48 NIKLAS LUHMANN, SOZIALE SYSTEME. GRUNDRISS EINER ALLGEMEINEN THEORIE 348 (Frankfurt a. M. Suhrkamp Verlag 1987). 49 Id., at 478. 47

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unmittelbar sachbezogenen Prozesse gewährleistet werden.50

The American sociologist Talcott Parsons writes about the system‘s self-reflexive way of referring to its own set of symbols: A cultural system can die out through the extinction of the personalities and societies which are its bearers, but it can also survive its bearers. Culture is not only transmitted from generation to generation through teaching and learning; it can be embodied in externalized symbols, for example, works of art, printed page, or storage devices such as computer tapes.51

Parsons and Platt furthermore state: Thus, a cultural system can be stable over time and relatively insulated from the effect of its environments, which include not only the physico-organic world but social, psychological, and organic subsystems of action. This stability enables a cultural system to serve as the prototype of an autonomous system.52

What about historical elements from a certain identification point in history? The GDR government tried to establish a myth that people could refer to. Since it did not have heroes of the near past—prominent German communist figures like Mao or Lenin, other things had to serve as reference and identity forming myth: Die DDR ist primär das Produkt internationaler Paktierungen und Interventionen und erst in zweiter Hinsicht eine sich selbst gestaltende und eigenständig verfasste Gesellschaft. Sozialgeschichte der DDR richtet sich auf ein Objekt, das einen bestimmbaren Anfang und ein datierbares Ende hat. Anfang und Ende wurden durch die politischen Interessen der Sowjetunion bestimmt, in deren Herrschaftsbereich eine der von den Alliierten des Weltkrieges eingerichteten vier Besatzungszonen 1945 gelangte.53

People in the GDR were aware of the fact that the communist system had not been established through a national revolution within the German East. Everyone knew that the GDR was established by the Soviet Union— therefore, coming from a foreign political power that had been an enemy to Germany not so long ago. At first the GDR government used the German communists of the KPD as reference and myth. The KPD was said to have played a major role in abloishing the Hitler-regime. People were well aware that this was not true. Hence the identification was not effective at all. The system wanted to stress its revolutionary character and therefore had to link 50

NIKLAS LUHMANN, MACHT IM SYSTEM 92 (AndréKieserling ed. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag 2013). TALCOTT PARSONS & GEORGE M. PLATT, THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 16 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1973). 52 Id., at 16. 53 M. RAINER LEPSIUS, INSTITUTIONALISIERUNG POLITISCHEN HANDELNS. ANALYSEN ZUR DDR, WIEDERVEREINIGUNG UND EUROPÄISCHEN UNION 67 (Wiesbaden: Springer VS 2013). 51

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itself to uniquely German revolutions of the people in the past. A fitting identification model was found in the Bauernkriege of 1525—the German Peasants Wars: ―Über die gesamte Zeit der DDR hinweg unterlagen die einschneidenden Ereignisse des 16. Jahrhunderts, namentlich der Bauernkrieg von 1525 und die Reformation ab 1517, einer ausgeprägten Mythisierung.‖54 The peasants were led by revolutionary Thomas Müntzer who struggled for an equal society where the peasants would not be pressed down by the strictly hierarchical system. The problem with Müntzer was that he was an evangelical pastor. The only thing the GDR government could do was to ignore his profession and emphasize his struggle against the authorities and point to an ominous claim by Friedrich Engels who presented Müntzer as atheist and social revolutionary. Next to Müntzer Martin Luther became a focal point of identification. 55 What had to be ignored about Luther was, naturally, his anti-semitic rantings and the fact that he was Thomas Müntzer‘s archenemy. In fact, Luther‘s standing in the FRG was much more controversial due to his open and militant antisemitism. Nevertheless, the revolution attempt of Müntzer and the beginning of Luther‘s reformation in 1517 were put in direct connection with the magical year 1917 and the Soviets‘ revolution in Russia. The GDR found the strongest way of fostering its own identity in distinguishing itself from the ―fascist‖ FRG: ―All diejenigen, die aus rassischen, religiösen und kulturellen Gründen ins KZ gekommen waren, transformierten zu Sozialisten und aktiven Widerständlern, die ja auch im KZ nur eine Minderheit darstellten.‖ 56 Turning all people sent to concentration camps into heroes of socialism of course also means that the GDR blamed the FRG for the crimes of the Nazis. This leads to the next big problem of finding an identification myth: ―Ein weiteres wichtiges Moment für die eingeschränkte Wirksamkeit des antifaschistischen Gründungsmythos in der DDR ist der Bruch zwischen kommunikativem und kulturellem Gedächtnis.‖57 However the reasoning behind this attempt to demonize the West might have been, the ―undemocratic‖ West inevitably became the evil double in official propanda. TV programs such as Der schwarze Kanal gave (sometimes quite entertaining) ―facts‖ about the misery of people who had the unpleasant fate to live under the West German ―fascists‖. Indeed, East Germany became kind of a double of the capitalist West in many respects. 54

ZIMMERING, supra note 38, at 169. See, id., at p. 179. 56 Id., at 106. 57 Id., at 166. 55

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Even children in both systems were brought to bed by different versions of the same sandman. The East German sandman displayed strong communist party features. Dressed in red he came to the East German children every evening and made them fall asleep. The West German sandman looked more like a captain of a cruise ship. Dressed in blue with a white beard he was a mix of Santa Claus and a caring grandfather. In many respects the GDR had to highlight its difference from the West to define its own identity. The flag features the symbols of socialism—the hammer of the builders, the compass as symbol of the planning intelligentsia, and two bundles of wheat referring to the peasnats who provide the system with nourishing produce. Since West Germany pursued the path of capitalism—constantly criticized as fascism—the GDR had to set different goals for its quest for winning the competition with its western neighbor: ―Die DDR orientiert sich in ihren Ausbildungszielen stärker am naturwissenschaftlich-ökonomischen-technischen Bereich, die Bundesrepublik mehr am sprachlich-geisteswissenschaftlichen Sektor.‖ 58 An ideal tool for the ideal system of governance was found in cybernetics: In dieser Vorstellung einer mit Hilfe von Computern vollständig informierten und sich harmonisch ergänzenden gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung brauchte die Partei nur noch die Anlagen entsprechend zu programmieren und mit den richtigen Korrekturdaten zu füttern. Alles andere würde sic dann im Selbstlauf eines kybernetischen Systems vollziehen, das im Rahmen der sozialistischen Ordnung den optimalen Weg der volkswirtschaftlichen Effektivität ansteuerte.59

The dream of establishing a totally self-governing system that would win the party the competition against the West was of course destined to fail. The resaon for the system‘s inefficiency is due to certain factors: Since the cybernetic system, and the technical in general, requires an uninterrupted coordination of concept and number, the nature of negation as an exact symmetrical interrelation of neighboring values, or numbers, must be held unconditionally.60

What the East German goverment and their political system were not able to provide was econmic stability that would allow the system to run smoothly: ―Die im Verhältnis zur BRD unsichere und schwankende wirtschaftliche Lage der DDR erbrachte... nicht den von der SED erhofften

58

KARL-HEINZ ECKHARDT, DEMOKRATIE UND PLANUNG IM INDUSTRIEVERTRIEB DER DDR. THEORIE UND PRAXIS 42 (Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmeiden 1981). 59

Id., at 55. Gotthard Günther, Identity, Counter-Identity and Negative Language. Vortrag: Internationaler Hegel-Kongress, Belgrad 1979, 52 (Joachim Paul et al., trans., HEGELJAHRBÜCHER 1979). 60

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Sieg im ökonomischen Wettbewerb.‖61 The consequence was an increased identification with the Soviet Union as role model for the GDR: ―Der Enthusiasmus geriet aber in eine wissenschaftspolitisch zunehmend reglementierte Zeit, die vor allem darauf ausgerichtet war, in der Sowjetunion praktizierte Auffassungen und Muster zu Leitbildern zu erheben.‖ 62 Peter Eskinat remarks: ―Die DDR war immer die folgsamste Mitläuferin in der Laufgemeinschaft des sozialistischen Mitläuferbundes mit der schnellen Sowjetunion an der Spitze.‖63 The fact that the GDR is just running along the USSR shows that it never really established ts own identity and was constantly looking for guidance by the Soviet Union. The big problem was that the GDR introduced foreign political elements into its own system without testing them for compatibility. Therefore, the cultural system of the GDR was faced with an inclusion without translation which was really a non-selective inclusion of Soviet elements that could proved to be incompatible with the specific cultural design background of the GDR.64 Inevitably, this lead to the GDR‘s economy‘s direct connection with the Soviet Union‘s economy: Ein solches System musste feste Außenabgrenzungen haben und durfte in keine außenwirtschaftlichen Abhängigkeiten geraten, die die Geltung andere Rationalitätskriterien aufzwingen. Die Anbindung an die Wirtschaft der Sowjetunion entsprach dieser Notwendigkeit, da dort eine vergleichbare Wirtschaftsverfassung bestand.65

Due to economic mismanagement and the government‘s inability to 61

ECKHARDT, supra note 56, at 22. Günther Tembrock, Die Verhaltensbiologie in der DDR, in EINMISCHUNGEN – DDR, LEBRECHT JESCHKE, HANS-DIETER SCHMIDT, MICHAEL SUCCOW, GÜNTHER TEMBROCK, KARL-FRIEDRICH WESSEL ZU FRAGEN DER ÖKOLOGIE, VERHALTENSBIOLOGIE, PSYCHOLOGIE, PÄDAGOGIK, PHILOSOPHIE U. A. 2627 (Berlin; Heidelberg; New York; London; Paris; Tokyo and Hong Kong: Springer-Verlag 1990). 63 Id., at 47. 64 In this context the matter of selective adaptability also plays an important role. The Soviet model had to be used in the GDR due to the SED‘s loyal allegiance to Stalinism. All later attempts to stabilize the weak economy with loans from the FRG failed leading to bankruptcy and, ultimately, the collapse of the system. [See William E. Partlett & Eric Ip, The Death of Socialist Law 3 (Paper presented at the International Conference. Quarter Century of Post-Communism: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. February 2-3, 2015. Session 7: China and post-communism. Christchurch, New Zealand: University of Canterbury)]. The differences of the GDR constitution and the Soviet Union‘s was another important problem: ―The constitution created a number of ―obligations and duties‖ to which all citizens must follow. At the center of these obligations and duties was the requirement that rights not infringe the interests of the state or society.‖ (Ibid. 14) The USSR constitution stood in stark contrast to the initially democratic principles of the GDR‘s constitution that granted the people the right to influence the interests of state and society. Interestingly, this right was taken away from the people in the two revisions of the GDR constitution in 1968 and 1974 in a desparate attempt of the SED to impose strict Leninist la wand stabilize the worsening weakness of the political system. 65 LEPSIUS, supra note 51, at 100. 62

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carry out necessary repairs and constructions the GDR slowls fell apart. Unlike the rich FRG the GDR was not moving forward at all. Consequently, over time the GDR became a ―negative Vergleichsgesellschaft‖ for the FRG—the FRG slowly became a ―positive Vergleichsgesellschaft‖ for the people of the GDR. 66 Exceptions can be found among West German intellectuals whose traditional role was to criticize the West by holding up the East as ideal. Arno Schmidt writes about his impression of the GDR in 1954: (Immerhin waren die Autos wesentlich rücksichtsvoller gegen Fußgänger, als im wilden Westen, und bremsten höflich, wenn man vor ihnen die Fahrbahn überschritt. Ich hatte die Bemerkung schon gestern Abend gegen Karl gemacht ; aber er hatte sie, voller Vorurteile, nur mit der allgemeinen Ärmlichkeit des Ostens abgetan : die hätten nicht mal genug Menschen zum Totfahren ! ).67

He adds the relative freedom due to the absence of huge numbers of forein occupying soldiers: ―Auch weniger russische Soldaten eigentlich, als bei uns Amis oder Franzosen ; hm hm.‖68 Schmidt adds that the GDR is more conscious of German war crimes than the FRG: Ein Schild an der Ecke: Hier hatte ein Schwein von Offizier 2 Volkssturmmänner aufhängen lassen, weil sie sich weigerten, den Irrsinn länger mitzumachen: Lest we forget! (Aber das war gut so!: Im ‹Freien Westen› erwähnt man das nicht mehr; würde wohl zu sehr den augenblicklich benötigten ‹Wehrwillen› beeinträchtigen! Ist doch eine recht gesund=abweichende Luft hier im Osten!)69

Indeed, contemporary West German society tried to forget the horrors and brutality of the Nazi-era. Since the GDR took the West as epitomy of fascism, it had to put the crimes of the fascists and their successors into public focus to create a credible ideological reference narrative. III. CONTEXTU(R)ALIY AND SYSTEM FORMING—THE PROBLEM OF CULTURAL COMPATIBILITY In the communist world the GDR has a somehow special status. It provided a system in which its citizens enjoyed a relatively high degree of personal freedom. East German author Peter Eskinat, who was allowed to travel to the West on a regular basis, did not see the GDR as oppressive system the way West Germans stereotypically believed it to be: ―Damals 66

See id., at 19. ARNO SCHMIDT, DAS STEINERNE HERZ. HISTORISCHER ROMAN AUS DEM JAHRE 1954 NACH CHRISTI 105 (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 2002). 68 Id.. 69 Id., at 106. 67

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genügte es, das Maul zu halten, wenn man keine Schwierigkeiten haben wollte.‖70 Eskinat also defends the GDR against West Germans he meets on his travels: Aber wenn uns dann so ein strammer Wessi in irgendeiner Kneipe in Heidelberg, Düsseldorf oder Kassel erzählte, aus welcher Hölle wir gekommen waren, dann konnte es schon passieren, dass wir diese DDR, an der wir zu Hause kaum ein gutes Haar ließen, zu verteidigen begannen.71

Eskinat emphasizes the security and freedom GDR citizens enjoyed at their work places: In einem Punkt aber waren die DDR-Bürger freier als alle Bürger in der freien Welt – in ihrer Eigenschaft als Werktätige. An ihrem Arbeitsplatz konnte ihnen kein Kaderleiter – so hießen die sozialistischen Personalchefs – etwas anhaben. Denn der musste immer fürchten, dass der Werktätige kündigte. Nicht umgekehrt.72

Lepsius remarks: ―Die DDR war ein ausgebauter Wohlfahrtsstaat.‖73 In contrast to the more insecure situation of employees in capitalist societies the workers of the GDR employees enjoy quite a powerful position, since soicalism is the principle basis of the GDR‘s political system. The repressions against common people were also relatively mild compared to other communist system like China or North Korea. Peter Eskinat once poked fun at the communist party in one of his performances in East Germany. Instead of being imprisoned the Stasi offered him to go to the West permanently—an offer that Eskinat refused: Als mir von der Staatssicherheit Anfang der achtziger Jahre wegen eines besonders unbotmäßigen Kabaretttextes die ―ständige Ausreise‖ angeboten wurde, habe ich gesagt: ―Mich müsst ihr rausschmeißen. Freiwillig gehe ich nicht.‖ 74 Critical intellectuals were usually encouraged to leave the GDR and go to the West. The most famous case is certainly East German singer‘s Wolf Biermann‘s leave in 1977. Of course, people were imprisoned by the Stasi and more than 200 were shot during attempts to flee the GDR.75 But the overall situation of people in the GDR was not as bad as in other communist countries. The question now is why? The principles of oneness and plurality introduced by William James seem to play a vital role in the 70

PETER ESKINAT, POPULÄRE DDR-IRRTÜMER. EIN LEXIKON 33 (Berlin: be.bra verlag 2008). Id., at 35. 72 Id., at 41. 73 LEPSIUS, supra note 51, at 148. 74 ESKINAT, supra note 70, at 33. 75 Interestingly, the ―freedom‖ of East Germans might have been due to the inefficiency of East German telephome lines and the fact that the Stasi had to deal with technology from the 1920s. The West German BND was much more efficient than the Stasi due to better technology. 71

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GDR‘s diversion from Stalinism.76 It is worth picking up the thoughts on the pluralistic universe mentioned in the beginning. Gotthar Günther explains the plurality of contexts in the known universe: There is no doubt that this Universe we live in displays an enormous amount of contextures in a bewildering arrangement. Since we have defined a contexture, by reference to the TND, as a domain the boundaries of which cannot be crossed by processes taking place within the range of the domain, we are forced to assume that all psychic spaces of living organisms—constitute closed contextures. It is self-evident that the process of thinking taking place within one person cannot be continued into the psychic space of a second person. My thoughts, as mental events, are only mine and nobody else‘s. A second person may produce the very same thoughts; but they are his and can never be mine.77

The various faces of communism in cultures so diverse as China, Russia, East Germany, Korea and others have to be due to factors of cultural systems. I have mentioned that the GDR struggled to find its identity and turned to history to find a suitable myth the citizens could identify with. In fact, the Soviet Union became a role model. The problem was that the USSR was also the power that occupied the GDR and therefore left the ruling party not much of a choice. In order to find answers to this question of why the GDR was different I will turn to the example of Mao‘s China which had been idealized by many western intellectuals—especially by Bertolt Brecht and leftist thinkers such as Sartre. In his play Der gute Mensch von Sezuan Brecht uses Chinese communism to confront capitalism with the ideal organization of society. Brecht uses the exotic setting of the Chinese province in order to make his parabel more appealing. His intention is to convey an important political method. As a Marxist Brecht‘s emphasis is on criticism of capitalism. In his play the protagonist, Shen-Te, has to take on the role of a fierce and greedy businessman, Shui-Ta, in order to survive in the competitive environment of Sezuan. Since Brecht sympathized with Communism and the struggle of the 76

Of course, Mao Tse-tung also distanced himself from Stalinism when his rule was fully established. He had to emnbrsace the Soviet Union‘s constitution at first so that he could rely on Stalin‘s support in the Chinese communists‘ fight against the Nationalists in China: ―A large number of Soviet law textbooks and codes were also translated into Chinese. Chinese legal scholars in the 1950s drew heavily on the definition and typology of law by A.Y. Vyshinsky, a Soviet legal thinker of the 1930s. This process of exchange and influence culminated in the PRC‘s first constitution (1954), which was remarkably similar to the Soviet Constitution of 1936. … In the years after 1957, however, the statist constitutional elements of the socialist model were largely rejected. This rejection culminated in the 1975 Constitution, which fundamentally departed from the Soviet-inspired 1954 Constitution.‖ (Partlett & Ip, supra note 62, at 15-16) 77 Gotthard Günther, LIFE AS POLY-CONTEXTURALITY, in BEITRÄGE ZUR GRUNDLEGUNG EINER OPERATIONSFÄHIGEN DIALEKTIK. BAND 2, 91 (Hamburg: Meiner Verlag 1979).

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Chinese communists under Mao Tse-tung, his choice seems to be quite logical. Brecht himself insisted that the province of Sezuan could stand for any place in the world and that the important aspect of the play is the criticism of a world in which people exploit other people. But Brecht‘s normative arcadianism is revealed in his foreword to later editions: ―Die Provinz Sezuan, die für alle Orte stand, an denen Menschen von Menschen ausgebeutet werden, gehört heute nicht mehr zu diesen Orten.‖78 In Brecht‘s view the province of Sezuan eliminated capitalism and, therefore, the exploitation of people with the victory of the Chinese communists. Brecht uses China and Chinese motifs in his play in order to confront the audience with a mentality different from traditional Western ways of thinking. He intends to make the audience aware of social injustice by letting them look at capitalism through an alternative form of morality – the one of ancient Chinese wisdom. Brecht‘s criticism of social injustice and exploitation is centered around the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Mo-Zi (墨子): Für Me Ti sind Tugenden und Laster (richtiges und falsches Verhalten) nicht eine Frage von Normen und Vorschriften, sondern eine Konsequenz gesellschaftlicher Lebensbedingungen, die sie ermöglichen oder erzwingen. Ethik ist somit ein Teil der Staatslehre und wird sozialpolitisch begründet.79

Brecht questions the possibility of an ethical society based on bourgeois-Christian ethics and turns to the philosophy of Mo-Zi because it emphasizes behavioral teachings: ―Dabei gewinnen Probleme einer materialistischen Ethik (in Gestalt einer ‗Verhaltenslehre‘) als Aufhebung der bürgerlich-christlichen ‗alten Ethik‘ eine zentrale Bedeutung.‖ 80 The Chinese motifs in Brecht‘s play, therefore, are supposed tob e a device with which a new—critical view on Western values and social reality becomes possible. A replacement of bourgeois-Christian values is what Brecht aims for—a social revolution. It is important for the author to convince the audience that the contemporary Western social model is merely one of many possible ones. Brecht follows Mo-Zi‘s definition according to which virtues and vices do not derive from norms and rules but that they are consequences of social living conditions—thereby attacking the inequality of Western society that is based on bourgeois and Christian norms. Chinese philosophy, in Brecht‘s play, can be seen as a way to overcome inequality and to pave 78

BERTOLT BRECHT, DER GUTE MENSCH VON SEZUAN. PARABELSTÜCK 6 (Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1974). 79 Bertolt Brecht, GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 6. STÜCKE 6, 434 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1989). 80 Id., at 433.

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the way for a system (communism) that can replace traditional Western society. Brecht‘s most important message is that Chinese thought is appealing because it differs from traditional Western thought.81 Brecht feels that introducing foreign values to Western mentality seems like an appropriate method to achieve social change. Brecht identifies himself with the political cause of the Chinese. Due to his own political ideology, the China of Mao Tse-tung becomes an arcadian place where the evils of capitalism no longer exist. Indeed, Mao said when interviewed by Edgar Snow in 1936: ―But I emphasize again the seizure of power is not our (immediate) aim. We want to stop civil war, create a people‘s democratic government with the Guomindang and other parties, and fight for our independence against Japan.‖82 This (supposed) quest for democracy turned into one of the cruelest dictatorships in history. Mao‘s comments on his mission reveal how easily intellectuals like Snow could be blinded by their idealism. Similarly, Brecht‘s standpoint is symptomatic for a whole generation of intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir and the young intellctuals of 1968 who saw China as role model – as manifestation of a victorious just cause against the unfair system of Western capitalism. The big question is how foreign cultural elements and intellectual discourse can be fit into a cultural system without being translated to be made compatible with the cultural environment. It seems as if there is a gradual difference between imported political rules and the traditionally accepted rules and doctrines the population of a certain cultural system is used to. The establishment of a shared cultural ―we‖ becomes of utmost importance when it comes to legitimizing the rule of a radically new political system breaking with the past and the tradition of the cultural system. 81

A position contrary to Brecht is displayed by his contemporary Hermann Hesse. Hesse was one of the many admirers of Chinese culture among German intellectuals of the early twentieth century. In order to advertize the value of Chinese culture he had to go the opposite way of Bertolt Brecht. Hesse‘s gives the following reason for promoting Daoism in Germany: ―ich wollte nur erzählen, daß diese merkwürdigen Bücher mir, der ich vom alten Orient nur die buddhistischen und dem Buddhismus verwandten Philosophen als Laie gekannt hatte, ganz neue Werte mitgeteilt haben. Ostasien hat, zwischen Buddha und Christus, eine nie zur Volksreligion gewordene Philosophie besessen, deren aktive, lebendig schöne Ethik der christlichen entschieden näher steht als der indischbuddhistischen.‖ [Hermann Hesse, Die Welt im Buch II. Rezensionen und Aufsätze aus den Jahren 1911-1916, in HERMANN HESSE. SÄMTLICHE WERKE. BAND 17, 16 (Volker Michels ed. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2002)]. Hesse emphasizes the similar character of Daoism and Christianity. The value of this ancient Chinese philosophy therefore lies in the fact that it resembles values of the traditional Western religious system. 82 EDGAR SNOW, RED STAR OVER CHINA: THE CLASSIC ACCOUNT OF THE BIRTH OF CHINESE COMMUNISM 444 (New York: Grove Press 1968).

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IV. A PACT SEALED IN BLOOD: CREATING CHINESE COMMUNIST IDENTITY THROUGH COLLECTIVE INTENTIONALITY Naturally, Brecht‘s China is nothing but a fantasy. The real world of Maoism was anything but a system worth imitating or learning from. People were forced to behave in the way Mao Tse-tung told them to behave: ―Everywhere, in government offices, factories, workshops, schools and universities they were ‚re-educated‘ and made to study newspapers and textbooks, learning the right answers, the right ideas and the right slogans.‖83 Jung Chang describes China under Mao Tse-tung in more radical terms—especially the Cultural Revolution: Mao intensified the terrorisation of society. He picked as his first instrument of terror young people in schools and universities, the natural hotbeds for activists. These students were told to condemn their teachers and those in charge of education for poisoning their heads with ‗bourgeois ideas‘—and for persecuting them with exams, which henceforth were abolished.84

Moreover, Mao imprisoned a huge number of Chinese in labor camps: ―The lives of millions were swallowed up by a vast array of prison camps scattered across the length and breadth of the country.‖85 In contrast to these extreme measures of the Chinese communists East Germans had relatively little terror to fear from the government. The reason why China established a terror regime with an extremely cruel dictatorship might be seen in the fact that China had never been a society based on democratic principles. Before the nationalists stepped on the stage as new goverment of the Republic of China in 1911 China was ruled by succession of powerful dynasties headed by emperors with god-like status over thousands of years. Chinese identity was largely based on Confucianism. The role model of power politics was seen in the emperor Qin Shi-huang—the founder of a united China and initiator of the construction of the Chinese Wall. In fact the Berlin Wall goes back to a suggestion by Mao Tse-tung to Walter Ulbricht: ―He suggested one Chinese ‗model‘ the East Germans might consider copaying: the Great Wall. A wall, he said, was a great help with keeping out people like ‗fascists‘. A few years later the Berlin Wall went up.‖ 86 Actually Mao Tse-tung himself used the Quin-emperor as role model for his rule over communist China. His point of identifiaction was located in the first unified China. The annexation of Tibet can be seen against this background. 83

DIKÖTTER, supra note 29, at xii. CHANG, supra note 43, at 534. 85 DIKÖTTER, supra note 29, at 243. 86 CHANG, supra note 43, at 534. 84

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Another reason for the strict rule in China and the relatively mild one in East Germany can also be attributed to the overall situation of the populations of both systems. Especially the peasants enjoyed quite a different status in China and East Germany: ―Chinese peasants were among the poorest in the world, as Mao knew very well. He knew equally well that peasants were starving under him. ... Mao did not care.‖87 But the peasants and the communists had cooperated before the creation of the People‘s Republic of China and therefore shared a common history. Frank Dikötter describes the way the Chinese communists won the support of the poor Chinese population: In the countryside, the poorest of the villagers took control of the peasant associations and turned the world upside down. They were now the masters and choose their targets at random, striking down the wealthy and powerful, creating a rein of terror. Some victims were knifed, a few decapitated. Chinese pastors were paraded thrugh the streets as ‗running dogs of imperialism‘, their hands bound behind their backs and a rope around their necks. Churches were looted. Mao admired the audacity and violence of the rebels.88

The brilliant strategy of the communists was to give all the things that had belonged to the wealthy to the poor: The pact between the party and the poor was sealed in blood as all the land and assets of the victims were distributed to the crowd. The land was paced, measured and disributed to the poor, the name of the beneficiary carved on a wooden signboard marking the boundary of each plot.89

Alain Badiou comments on Mao‘s strategy of winning over the peasants for his cause: ―... Mao founds a relation, unexplord before him, between the future of the socialist process and the confidence placed in the peasants. ... It aims to serve the constitution of a popular politics, of a real alliance internal to the communist movement ...―90 In the context of sudden outbursts of orgiastic violence of the kind of the Chinese peasants cooperating with the rising communists to engage in terror campaigns against the wealthier people of China one can easily identify the motif of a 87

Id., at 400. In the case of Mao‘s China Brecht also argued that the revolution would be humane— even more humane than in Stalin‘s Soviet Union: ―Die Befreiung von den Lastern braucht mehr Zeit als die Revolution. Sie wird schon beim zweiten Mal (in China) etwas leichter sein und auch in weniger rückständigen Ländern, wo die ursprüngliche Akkumulation von Kapital bereits fortgeschrittener ist.‖ [Bertolt Brecht, Über die Kritik an Stalin, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 23. SCHRIFTEN 3, 417 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992)]. 88 DIKÖTTER, supra note 29, at 63. 89 Id., at 67 90 ALAIN BADIOU, LOGICS OF WORLDS. BEING AND EVENT, 2, 23 (Alberto Toscano trans. New York: Continuum 2009).

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sudden collective uprising against the authorities that are typical of Bakhtin‘s definition of the carnival and its popular-festive forms. In case of the Chinese peasants and their victory over their former masters the following definition perfectly sums up their collective campaign: ―They present the victory of this future, of the golden age, over the past. This is the victory of all the people‘s material abundance, freedom, euqlity, brotherhood.‖91 Bakhtin emphasizes the positive aspects of the reversal of the social hierarchy during the time of the carnival and its traditional forms. It is worth to take a look at Slavoj Žižek as he refers to Bakhtin‘s theory of the carnival and projects it on sudden outbursts of violence and pogroms: As numerous analyses from Bakhtin onward have shown, periodic transgressions are inherent in the social order; they function as a condition of the latter‘s stability. (The mistake of Bakhtin – or, rather, of some of his followers – was to present an idealized image of these ―transgressions,‖ to pass in silence over lynching parties, and so forth, as the crucial form of the ―carnivalesque suspension of social hierarchy.‖) The deepest identification that holds together a community is not so much an identification with the Law that regulates its ―normal‖ everyday circuit as identification with the specific form of transgression of the Law, of its suspension (in psychoanalytic terms, with the specific form of enjoyment).92

Žižek sees no real difference between orgiastic festivities at the carnival and pogroms of all kinds: The Nazi community relied on the same solidarity-in-guilt adduced by the participation in a common transgression: it ostracized those who were not ready to assume the dark inverse of the idyllic Volksgemeinschaft, the night pogroms, the beatings of political opponents – in short, all that ―everybody knew, yet did not want to speak of aloud.‖93

By doing so the poor population of China and the communists engaged in a shared intentionality and fostered a ―we‖ that lead to a collective intentionality that made it possible for the people to identify with the communist party and its political cause. East Germany lacked such incidents where the population and the party would have been able to seal a pact and establish a collective intentionality with the East German communist party. The change of the German East into a communist system was orchestrated by the Soviet Union and did not have the time to evolve and make the party establish the same kind of bond with the people the way the Chinese communists had done. Therefore an identification with a shared common 91

M. M. BAKHTIN, RABELAIS AND HIS WORLD 256 (Hélène Iswolsky trans. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press 1984). 92 Slavoj Žižek, Eastern European Liberalism and Its Discontents, 57 NEW GERMAN CRITIQUE 47 (1992). 93 Id., at 48.

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struggle of the population and the party simply did not exist. The irony of history is that Mao—after the PRC had been established—eagerly supplied the much wealthier GDR with Chinese produce of the again shockingly poor Chinese peasants: East Germany‘s leader, Ulbricht, said he knew that China was enjoying fantastic economic growth in agriculture, and could it send more meat so that they could match West Germany‘s annual consumption of 80 kg per capita? In China, even in the cities, the meat ration for the whole year was only a few kilos.94

Mao helped out with meat: ―In fact, food imports from China had just allowed East Germany, with a standard of living incomparably higher than China‘s, to end rationing in May 1958.‖ 95 This strange case shows the inequality in both communists systems freedom of the population and also the standards of living due to the financial situation of the peoples. Naturally, Chinese history had been quite different from East Germany‘s. After decades of war on Chinese soil the country lay in ruins. Of course, so did East Germany after the Second World War. The problem was that the infrastructure was much better developed in Germany than in China. Other differences include the mentality and history of thought that both sets both systems apart. China had no experience with democracy at all. In Germany a modest attempt to establish a democracy had been made during the Weimar Republic in the 1920s. The disaster of Hitler‘s reign brought Germany a twelve year dictatorship. Nevertheless, the population was not as poor as the majority of the Chinese. Another aspect is the fact that socialism and especially Marxism is closely linked with German thought. In China this western idea of a socialist state was utterly exotic, therefore making it very difficult to include western socialist elements even by translating them into the Chinese culturo-political reference system to make them compatible with Chinese culture. Mao Tsetung‘s dictatorship, consequently, appeared more like a Mao-Dynasty based on Mao‘s analysis of Chinese histry which he had profound knowledge about. He most likely saw the parallels between the contemporary situation of China—a country where different factions went to war against each other—with the 春秋戰國 which is still part of Chinese folklore because of literary masterpieces like 三國演義 which nowadays is still being turned into TV series enjoying extreme popularity in the Chinese speaking world— in the sixth century B.C. that set China into chaos and was ended by Qin Shi-huang and his army. The emperor then created a unified China which he 94 95

CHANG, supra note 43, at 463. Id..

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ruled with utmost cruelty.96 The same observations can be made in the Russian communist system. Russia was equally ruled by a dictatorship for centuries. The idea of socialism based on democracy must haven been just as foreign to the Russian population used to being ruled with brutal force by the tsar. The advent of Stalin and his terror regime seems to be a logical consequence when taking a closer look at history. Lenin himself equipped with foreign ideas and discourses was sent to Russia with German help to bring an end to the war with tsarist Russia, thereby importing a foreign political system to Russia where it had to be made fit the environment of the Russian cultural system. Since the Russian population was used to be ruled with brutal force, Lenin drew the conclusion that a new regime can build on the experience of the population with the tsar‘s governemtnby making himself a new (communist) dictator—a new tsar: Diese Betonung Lenins war nur zu begreifen, wenn man an den tief verwurzelten, anscheinend unausrottbaren Glauben der Menschen, und der 96

It is worth noting that Quin Shi-huang himself rejected Confucianism as mode of governance. Instead he turned to the Legalist tradition prominently represented by Han Fei—a contemporary of the new Chinese emperor: ―韓非的學說以人性本惡為基本出發點，反對禮樂教化，主張以法治 國，認為只有通過強有力的外部力量對人性的邪惡加以約束，才能維持社會的正常秩序。當 然，為實行法治，韓非認為還必須要借助「術」和「勢」。所謂「術」，就是權謀之術，就 是利用人性惡去抑制惡；所謂「勢」，就是權勢，就是要用君王手中的生殺予奪之權勢制服 天下。... 韓非的文章傳到秦國，他提出的君主專制主張深得秦王的認同 ...。(韓高年, 編著. 中 國文學史 (Taipei: Linkingbooks (聯經出版事業股份有限公司), 2011), p. 37-38.) Han Fei theorized that only a powerful ruler with the right to impose utmost force on the population—the right to kill disobedient citizens—would be able to create a stable political system and, therefore, a stable society not threatened to be destabilized from the inside. CLearly, Mao Tse-tung found his role model not only in Quin Shi-huang but also in the Legalist tradition lending the utmost power to the totalitarian ruler. This turning to Chinese history to find an adequate mode of governance is yet another example of selective inclusion. Alain Badiou points out to what extent Mao, after he had established himself as ruler of China, turned against Stalinism in order to define communist system that could be clearly identified as Maoist: ―Ten years after the seizure of power by the Chinese communists, in the years 1958-59, bitter debates arise in the Party over the country‘s development, the socialist economy, the transition to communism. Some years later, these debates will lead to the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. It is altogether striking that, in Mao Tse-tung‘s work during this period, the critique of Stalin occupies a very important place, as if, in order to find a new path, it was necessary to return to the balance-sheet of the USSR‘s collectivization in the thirties.It is even more striking that this confrontation between the Stalin of the thirties to the fifites and Mao at the threshold of the sixties evokes, down to its very detail, an infinitely older quarrel: the one that took place in 81 BC in China between the Legalists and the Confucian conservatives after the death of the emperor Wu—a quarrel which is recorded in the great Chinese classic (obviously written by a Confucian), the Discourses on Salt and Iron.‖ (BADIOU, supra note 87, at 20.) Badiou further emphasizes the recognizable connection of Mao and the Chinese Legalists: ―This immanent articulation of will, equality, confidence and terror can be read in the proposals of the Legalists and of Mao. It is rejected in the proposals of the Confucians and of Stalin, which inscribe inequality into the objective law of becoming.‖ (Id., at 21)

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meisten ihrer Führer, an die Unmündigkeit der Masse, vor allem an die Unmöglichkeit, ohne autoritäre Lenkung auszukommen, dachte.97

These different approaches to communism—these different interpretations of Marxism can only be understood when considering the factor of re-accentuation a crucial element in the process of creating identity. In the case of the GDR the Peasant Wars are re-accentuated to be fit into the system of the newly established GDR and to serve as myth according to which an identity can be formed. Mao‘s China re-accentuated certain events of Chinese history—the time when China rose to extreme power—to establish its place as superpower in the world. The Russian communists had to deal with their own system‘s logic and realized that it could maintain continuity of the power structures the population was used to and therefore could be controlled with. V. THE END: THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL AND THE FUTURE The history of communist systems shows a variety of different communisms. Socialist societies seem like laboratories of political discourses—no two communist systems are alike: ―Die Geschichte der Ostblockländer bietet eine Fülle von experimentellen Konstellationen für die Analyse sozialen Wandels durch Institutionalisierungs- und Deinstitutionalisierungsprozesse.‖ 98 One of the biggest challenges for the ruling party of the GDR was creating a genuine GDR identity that the population would support: ―Der SED-Staat förderte, wo es auch immer ging, ein ‗Wir‘-Bewußtsein der DDR-Bürger.‖99 The attempt to create a collective intentionality was ardently pursued by the state: Die Treuschwüre der Bürger in zahlreichen sozialistischen Ritualen, ob Jugendweihe oder Massendemonstration, Ordensverleihung oder Belobigung, waren der Preis zur Sicherung privater Spielräume und begründeten eine stillschweigende Übereinkunft zwischen Herrschern und Beherrschten, waren ein Berührungspunkt zwischen offizieller und informeller Kultur, der das 97

REICH, supra note 25, at 223-224. Brecht comments on the duty of the communist party to limit the population‘s freedom and thereby, in strak contrast to Reich, justifies any measure against the people: Die SU würde heute, auch wenn sie sich weigerte, als Nation aufzutreten, lauter Nationen gegenüber dennoch als Nation dastehen. Sie kann nicht anders als als Staat handeln. ... Der proletarische Staat kann aber einzelne staatliche Züge liquidieren, wenn seine Ökonomie es fordert. [Bertolt Brecht, Über die Beziehung der internationalen Arbeiterparteien zur KPSU, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 22.1. SCHRIFTEN 2, 303 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992)]. 98 LEPSIUS, supra note 51, at 39. 99 Eberhart Neubert, Was Waren Oppositionen, Widerstand und Dissidenz in deer DDR? Zur Kategorisierung Politischer Gegnerschaft, in OPPOSITION, WIDERSTAND UND DISSIDENZ IN DER DDR VON DEN 70ER JAHREN BIS ZUM ZUSAMMENBRUCH DER SED-HERRSCHAFT 19 (Eberhard Kuhrt et al. eds., Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien 1999).

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Unverbindbare im ritualisierten Verfahren koexistieren ließ.100

But the attempts of creating a GDR identity failed. The party had never been able to foster a genuine ―we‖ in the collective mind of the population. This slowly led to the formation of counter-initiatives organized by people in churches and elsewhere: Mit der Entstehung von Friedens-, Bürgerrechts- und Umweltgruppen in der DDR zeichnete sich die Bildung von autonomen Teil-Öffentlichkeiten ab, die teils als kulturelle und jugendliche, teils als publizistische Gegenkulturen agierten und untereinander auch teilweise in engen Kontakt traten.101

Interestingly, religion was not persecuted by the communist party in the GDR so that many people used church groups to criticize and attack the party: ―Der einzige Bereich mit einer relativen Selbständigkeit war die Religion. Die SED war atheistisch und konnte kein Interpretationsmonopol über die Religionsinhalte und die Religionsausübung beanspruchen.‖ 102 The protesters that finally managed to tear down the Berlin Wall had first organized their venue in churches and then took to the streets to challenge the (already bankrupt) state of the GDR. Indeed, the end of the GDR had already begun at the end of the 1960s when the communist party had repeatedly received credits from the FRG to be able to survive a little longer. One of the main problems of the GDR was that its one party system was simply to inefficient to govern the country: Die Folge dieses Systems der zentralistischen Einzelleitung war nicht nur eine Ausschaltung der demokratischen Willensbildung und partizipativen Entscheidungsfindung, sondern die mangelnde Vermittlung der verschiedenen Ressortkompetenzen.103 100

Id., at 20. HELMUT FEHR, UNABHÄNGIGE ÖFFENTLICHKEIT UND SOZIALE BEWEGUNGEN. FALLSTUDIEN ÜBER BÜRGERBEWEGUNGEN IN POLEN UND DER DDR 220 (Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien 1996). 102 LEPSIUS, supra note 51, at 69 103 Id., at 77. Überall müßte die Partei eingreifen, die paar Mann, die den Staate vertreten im Gegensatz zu der Beamtenschaft. [Bertolt Brecht, Die Partei, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 23. SCHRIFTEN 3, 262 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992)]. It seems that the people are just not able to govern themselves and therefore must constantly be placed under party control. Brecht also wanted a closer cooperation between party and population—a more direct way for the citizens of East Germany to get in touch with the authorities: ―Vielleicht machen wir zuwenig aus unserer Volkskammer. Sie arbeitet, wie ich höre, in ihren Ausschüssen, aber das geht ‗hinter verschlossenen Türen‘ vor sich, und die Bevölkerung erfährt wenig davon. Wir könnten aber die Volkskammer als ein großes Kontaktinstrument von Regierung zu Bevölkerung und von Bevölkerung zu Regierung einrichten, als ein großes Sprech- und Horchinstrument. ... Die Leute müßten ihren Abgeordneten Briefe schreiben können, auch anonyme, und die Abgeordneten müßten die Briefe beantworten, in Versammlungen, in Volkskammersitzungen, in Briefen. Der Regierung würde dies einen kostbaren Überblick über die Stimmung, die Sorgen, die Ideen der Bevölkerung geben und der Bevölkerung ein Organ.‖ [Bertolt Brecht, Die Volkskammer, in GROSSE KOMMENTIERTE FRANKFURTER UND BERLINER AUSGABE. BAND 23. SCHRIFTEN 3, 283 (Werner Hecht et al. eds. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag 1992)] 101

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After the fall of the Berlin Wall West Germany quickly proposed the reunification and left the East Germans with their decripit economy hardly any chance to refuse this ―offer‖: Die politische Vereinigung ging schnell und relativ reibungslos vonstatten. Es galten sofort die westdeutschen Verfassungs- und Rechtsordnungen, und nach dem Aufbau der nötigen Verwaltungsstrukturen konnte deren Geltungsanspruch auch durchgesetzt werden.104

East Germany was left with no choice to join Germany—in fact, it was more or less enacted by West Germany. After forty years of communism in the East capitalism had won. Accordingly, Žižek claims that the fall of the Berlin Wall and, consequently, the fall of communism in Europe was due to a ―craving for bananas and pornography‖. There might be some truth in this statement. The fact that the economic situation had been dire for years before the end of the GDR naturally contributed to the failure of the experiment of East German communism. Russia has gone back to capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union. As the USSR fell apart the question of national identities in the former Soviet Republics led to ethnic wars in ExYugoslavia. Other countries like Slovakia went on a quest for postcommunist identity: One of the most contentious issues that impacted on political developments after 1989 was the question of the appropriate relationship between the state and the (ethnically defined) nation—first within the Czechoslovak state, and later in the context of the newly created, independent Slovak Republic.105

The East Germans were not faced with difficulties of ethnic identity, since it had been German all along. In communist systems like China the question of identity is a much bigger problem leading to new uprisings at the western periphery of the People‘s Republic almost every day. Interestingly, China remains the only serious communist system in the twenty-first century, and ist global influence is growing. In his bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century, French economist Thomas Piketty asks: ―Will the world in 2050 or 2100 be owned by traders, top managers, and the superrich, or will it belong to the oil-producing countries or the Bank of China?‖106 The success of Chinese communism is due to the fact that communism is still used as official ideology. However, the strong capitalist characteristics of today‘s China cannot be ignored as strangely contradicting 104

LEPSIUS, supra note 51, at 104. STEFAN AUER, LIBERAL NATIONALISM IN CENTRAL EUROPE 156 (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004). 106 PIKETTY, supra note 32, at 15. 105

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the communist principles of the founding father of China, Mao Tse-tung. It must have been the Mao-experience that led Deng Xiao-ping to realize: ―Der Anspruch des Marxismus als kritische Gesellschaftstheorie konnte in der sozialistischen Gesellschaft nicht eingelöst werden.‖ 107 Twenty-first century China is, indeed, a product of Deng Xiao-ping‘s decision to follow the advice of Singapore‘s dictator Lee Kuan Yew who suggested Deng use the same economic strategy as Singapore to start economic growth: On his visit to Singapore, Deng met a kindred spirit in the extraordinary Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and glimpsed a vision of China‘s possible future—a majority-Chinese society prospering under what Deng would later describe admiringly as ―strict administration‖ and ―good public order.‖ At the time, China was still desperately poor, and its own ―public order‖ had barely survived the Cultural Revolution.108

In order to lead China into economic prosperity the communist party had to undergo a series of reforms so that the new capitalist measures would not collide with communist principles: With the beginning of the reform era, the CCP not only created new organizations to link itself with the changing economic and social environment, it also undertook a determined and extensive effort to recruit new members with new sets of skills into the party. This was a direct consequence of the party‘s decision to switch its key task from promoting class struggle during the Mao years to promoting economic modernization in the post-Mao era.109

The most important move was made in 2001 when it became possible to private businessmen to join the ruling party: ―... Jiang Zemin publicly recommended lifting the ban on entrepreneurs in his July 1, 2001 speech marking the 80th anniversary of the founding of the CCP.‖ 110 Now the former enemy—the evil capitalist—became a part of the communist government. Ironically, the economic growth made possible a further stabilization of the Chinese communist system through the steady increase of state capital. The growing economy further contributed to this stability. So China‘s new liaison with capitalism achieved exactly the cybernetic state 107

NEUBERT, supra note 96, at 19. Deng had confronted Mao about the true nature of the Cultural Revolution. Mao himself had to find a way to silence his critic within the party: ―Mao‘s moment came on 8 January 1976, when Deng‘s chief ally Chou En-lai died, at the age of seventy-eight. Mao moved at once. He fired Deng, put him under house arrest, and publicly denounced him by name.‖ (CHANG, supra note 43, at 644) Considering his opposition to Maoism it is not surprising that Deng sould steer China into a direction radically different from the route Mao had intended. 108 HENRY KISSINGER, ON CHINA 358 (New York and London: Penguin Books 2012). 109 BRUCE DICKSON, RED CAPITALISTS IN CHINA. THE PARTY, PRIVATE ENTREPRENEURS, AND PROSPECTS FOR POLITICAL CHANGE 89 (Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore and São Paulo: Cambridge University Press 2003). 110 Id., at 103.

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that the GDR tried to establish but failed to do so because of the unstable economy. Dickson writes: ―The political implications of China‘s economic reforms center on the adaptability of the Chinese Communist Party.‖ 111 The Chinese communist party has indeed proven to be extremely adaptable. Without the economic reforms and the change in party policy it is questionable that Chinese communism would have survived in the long run. What the Chinese communists led by Mao had understood was that the principles of a strong governemnt could be found in history in the figure of Qin Shi-huang whose key to a stable society was force imposed by the government. The laws of society had to be enforced by the government and its organs—a fact that is valid for Chinese as well as western history: ―Es kommt hinzu, daß Politik und Recht nur möglich sind, wenn sie zu ihrer Durchsetzung auf physische Gewalt zurückgreifen und Gegengewalt wirksam ausschließen können.‖112 The destablization through civil war had led to the definition of laws to ensure a stable society. The problem was that laws alone could not guarantee stability113: ―Die Einsicht war: das Recht könne aus sich selbst heraus mit seinen eigenen Ressourcen der ungeschriebenen Tradition, des ―artificial reason‖ der Juristen, der Begründbarkeit dessen, was dem Einzelnen als sein Recht erscheint, nicht den Frieden sichern.‖114 The pact of the Chinese communists and the people (peasants) was more valuable than the Chinese constitution because many of its aspects were actually borrowed from the Soviet Union and therefore foreign to Chinese culture and common Chinese understanding: Even where China‘s legal reformers looked to prior PRC experience, this was strongly colored by foreign (mostly Soviet) ideals. Thus, the drafting of the 1978 Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law and the organizational laws for the People‘s Courts and the People‘s Procuracies relied primarily on prior drafts 111

Id., at 3. NIKLAS LUHMANN, AUSDIFFERENZIERUNG DES RECHTS. BEITRÄGE ZUR RECHTSSOZIOLOGIE UND RECHTSTHEORIE 154 (FRANKFURT A. M.: SUHRKAMP VERLAG 1999). 113 Partlett and Ip point out the initial intention of Leninist law: ―Leninism made it clear that law and legal institutions should play an instrumental role in building a strong, dictatorial state that could build communism. Lenin explained that ‗law is a political tool‘ and therefore should be mobilized as a way of building a new society. It was Lenin‘s firm conviction that a socialist legal system should emphasize ‗public order‘ rather than ‗individual rights‘ and that only ‗universal legal discipline could hold the state together.‘ In contrast to the civil law basis in traditional Roman and Canon law principles, this Leninist conception saw law as a tool of contemporary politics.‖ (Partlett & Ip, supra note 62, at 5-6) Leninism instrumentalizes law in order to replace the system of Tsarism with the new system of Leninism. The question is to ehat extent communism itself is merely a tool to gain power for Lenin and his followers. In this context it has to be asked if Marxism itself is also merely a tool to establish Leninism through a (quite free) re-accentuation of Marxism. 114 NIKLAS LUHMANN, DAS RECHT DER GESELLSCHAFT 411 (FRANKFURT A. M.: SUHRKAMP VERLAG 1995). 112

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and enactments from the 1950s, which had been based largely on on Soviet models.115

Potter explains the circumstance that compatibility played an important role for the creation of communist rule in China: The application of international liberal models of law and legal institutions to China‘s circumstances is affected by local contexts, particularly political imperatives and the reception of legal norms by individual specialists and by groups in society. ... the effect of imported law norms on local behavior and attitudes in China depends in part on the extent to which the norms of the legal regime resonate with existing values.116

He concludes: ―Local norms in China derive from traditional values on social, economic, and political relations, and also from local conditions.‖117 What Potter states here is valid for every culture in the realm of human civilization: Without shared intentionality there ishardly a way to establish and foster shared identity (collective intentionality). China has eventually found its own way to save communism from disappearing from the political landscape of the world. It could only do so by re-accentuating the status of communism—its role—in the capitalist world. As only surviving (relevant) communist system—Cuba is currently being approached by the USA, North Korea is nothing more than a communist zombie state in steady decline due to self-sabotage—China found a smart way to continue its communist legacy and cooperate with international capitalism and democratically governed countries all over the world with important economic partners such as the USA and the European Union (although in this case it is more or less Germany the PRC is reaching out to in order to form a lasting economic partnership). The failure of the Soviet Union and the GDR and the end of communism in Europe have led to new systems and new constellations. The European Union is an international experiment wich raises new questions about identity: ―Aus einer völkerrechtlichen Vertragsschließung zwischen souveränen Staaten entstand eine in ihrer Art neue supranationale 115

PITMAN B. POTTER, THE CHINESE LEGAL SYSTEM. GLOBALIZATION AND LOCAL LEGAL CULTURE 4 (London and New York: Routledge 2001). Potter goes on emphasizing that big parts of PRC law was crafted after foreign legal systems: ―The 1981 Economic Contract Law was influenced significantly by prior contract regulations, which were derived largely from the Soviet and Eastern European experience. The General Principles of Civil Law (1986) were based on relatively well-developed drafts begun during the 1950s and continued during the post-Mao period, which themselves were derived from the European an Soviet experience. Civil Procedure Law too was drawn largely from European models.‖ (id.) 116 Id., at 6. 117 Id., at 7.

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Gemeinschaft.‖ 118 And: ―Mit dem Übergang von der Europäischen Gemeinschaft zur Europäischen Union wird ‗Europa‘ politisiert.‖ 119 This new politicized Europe is confronted with Putin‘s Russia reclaiming the former member states of the Soviet Union, and conflicts are preprogrammed. Lepsius further states that a new European identity has been created with the European Union: ―Mit der Europäischen Union ist ein Bezugsobjekt für eine europäische Identität entstanden.‖ 120 A European constitution could further foster this identity through an ―Identitätsstiftung durch eine europäische Verfassung‖121 The difference of a European Union to the Soviet Union seems to lie in the fact that there has never been a ―Soviet‖ identity in the member states of the USSR. The GDR did not even have a GDR identity of its own. But the matter of identity seems to become increasingly important in the future when it is to decide where Europe ends and Russia begins122—where two powerful identity systems face each other and how they will resolve the identity conflicts of the future. Eventually, the situation the world is facing now is not any different from the situation when the communist experiments began. The fact that we live in a poly-contextural world—a world that is part of a pluralistic universe—will lead to new (random) combinations of historical, ideological, technological, economic (etc.) aspects in new political systems. What the future will bring cannot be said with certainty. What can be said is that the world will never stand still, and more is yet to come ... CONCLUSION The initial appeal of communism displayed by many intelletuals during the first years of the Soviet Union in the 1920s. had disappeared almost completely by the 1970s. Instead of enthusiasm fatigue spread among socialist thinkers who had become disillusioned by political reality of communism. The slow decline of the GDR was due to the fact that ist was forced to use the Soviet economy model. Attempts to adjust by turning to cybernetics as system of governance proved ineffective—the ruling party fsiled to establish a communist identity among the population because of the 118

LEPSIUS, supra note 51, at 22. Id., at 193. 120 Id., at 202. 121 See Id., at 222. 122 Naturally, this process also puts into question the Chinese dientity of China‘s various ethnic groups pushing for independence at the periphery of the People‘s Republic in remote regions such as Xingjiang with a population largely consisting of Uighur people. In this context the matter of Taiwanese independence furthermore plays an important role, since the differences in the political systems of Taiwan and the PRC lead to obvious problems of socio-political compatibility. 119

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lack of collective intentionality. Unlike the Chinese communists the GDR‘s communist party had never created a bond with the people. No reference myth could be referred to in order to enable self-referentiality and identity. A cultural system without the possibility of self-referentiality is unable to stabilize itself because it can neither define its identity nor its barriers. The missing adaptability to the changing conditions inside and outside the GDR ultimately led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. With the end of the GDR the communist world collapsed leaving only China as powerful communist system. Just like the GDR Mao Tse-tung‘s China used Stalinism as primary model for its own communist system. The problem was make the communist model fit into the local cultural environment. Mao was able to combine communism with the political model oft he Quin Dynasty using the Chinese Legalist tradition as model for the political system. Thereby creating an operable (particularly Chinese) communism. Political and social reality in the GDR and in China were utterly different due to the different cultural environments. The relative freedom people nejoyed in the GDR ironically led to the collapse of the system, since people were able to organize resistance in religious groups that were tolerated by the government. In the pluralistic universe of communism(s) the GDR, therefore, was a more liberal version of communism still operating with Stalinist law. The bankruptcy of the GDR eventually left the ruling party no option but to give up. All efforts to stabilize the system had failed. It has been shown that a cultural GDRidentity could not be created due to missing shared intentionality and a specifically communist history. There had been no communist revolution in the GDR. It was a product of the Soviet Union. Mao was able to successfully exploit the Long March and the shared pogroms of the party and the people and was able to create a shared commonality. In the twentyfirst century the PRC has successfully adapted to the capitalist world due to reforms carried out by Deng Xiao-ping, thereby ensuring the survival of Chinese communism in the pluralistic universe of capitalism(s). China and the GDR are striking examples of how two extremely different political systems can still fit in the universe of communism. China, however, is the most stunning example of how adaptability is crucial to keep a political model operable in an ever changing world without risking destabilization.